Chef Will Gilson of Cambridge’s Garden at the Cellar is raising two cute pigs, Porcini and Truffle, for slaughter later this summer in anticipation of a dinner at the James Beard House in New York. The pigs are being raised on a farm, not at the restaurant, but I still think it’s notable. I like eating meat, but I also think people should make a conscious decision about what they’re eating. Articles like this that put a cute face on your pork chop force you to think about it. More chefs raising their own animals (hopefully as close to the restaurant as possible) will mean better educated eaters, and I hope more local chefs adopt this way of sourcing meat.
Don’t put the ring in crème brûlée.
Don’t put the ring into a salad and then order caviar.
Do have “a special plate with a trapdoor and a secret compartment.”
Don’t force your date to order a dessert if it’s hiding a ring.
Don’t paint “Will you marry me?” on a plate.
Don’t turn her down at a restaurant if you think she might throw plates.
Don’t call the co-owner at home to tell them the engagement is off and not to tell anyone.
Do visit the restaurant a week before and confer with the manager.
Do get seated in the middle of the restaurant.
Do find out what a cloche is because some restaurants use them to hide rings.
Do print a custom with your question under the Specials.
Do ask in advance and have your mother-in-law pay for dinner.
Do sit privately if you’re going to ask for a divorce.
Do bring your mistress on February 13th.
Do fill a private room with rose petals, candles, and everything good on the menu if you cheat on your wife.
Do not touch your partner sexually at the restaurant or have sex in the bathroom.
Do stop if asked by a matronly waitress.
Do try to book a six-top at a restaurant on 2/14. That’s an easy reservation because everyone is booking as a couple.
Do ask for the manager’s help in inviting your 50 closest friends to a shotgun wedding.
Do leave a hotel key in a box for your husband, asking that it be delivered in 5 minutes.
It took seven and a half months, but I’ve finally finished the review of our trip to Barcelona and Sitges, Spain in June, 2008. I started it as a review to make remembering our trip easier. As I was writing it up, I decided to make it more of a travel guide to hopefully convince you to go to Barcelona. It was an amazing trip.
Barcelona is very beautiful. Parts are dirty and smelly, but those parts are serviced 24/7 by sanitation workers. I was struck by how most of the buildings look like they were from the 50s or 60s and wondered what makes the replacement cycle so much faster in cities like Boston. The city is eminently walkable, and the transportation system adds to the ease in getting around. If you like looking out over cities from heights, you’re in luck. There are at least 6 different tourist destinations that offer great views of the city.
Bottom line?
Where to stay: Hotel Regencia Colon – Perfectly situated and affordably priced.
Must visit landmaks: Santa Maria del Mar, La Boqueria, Sagrada Familia, Casa Milà, Montserrat, Sitges
Must eat: Tapaç 24, Euskal Etxea, Chocolateria Valor
Must shop: Kukuxumusu, Xocoa
Also, please play around with this map I made of all the places we went to or should have gone to. I spent days before we went researching restaurants, hotels, landmarks and popping them onto this map to make it easy to figure out what to do in each neighborhood once we got there. The price of this travel guide is worth it just for this free map.
In closing, I hope you’ll go Barcelona because it’s awesome and you going will validate our decision to go. If you do go, I hope you find this Travel Guide helpful because would validate the time I put into it. Because after all, what’s a blog based Travel Guide if not an adventure in navel gazing?
How did we go so long living in Providence without knowing about Sandwich Hut? It is SO GOOD. It’s basically a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop, but the sandwiches are truly excellent.
I go back and forth between the Deluxe Italian Grinder and the Allitalia (which is basically a huge pile of meats on a roll), while Rachel’s been sticking to the fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and pesto sub. Yum.
Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.
We had caught a headline saying something like “African Heat Headed to Spain”, earlier in the week, and if it hadn’t arrived by yesterday, it was certainly here today. After breakfast, we decided to take one more trip around town and down by the beach. On the boardwalk, we were surprised to find techno music playing and a set up for a spin class. Only in Sitges.
We caught our train back to Barcelona after sadly bidding Sitges adieu. Our hotel, Aparthotel Calabria, was in a different area of Barcelona than we had stayed earlier in the week. While it was fine, I’d suggest staying closer in to the Barri Gothic. This hotel is next door to two grocery stores, incidentally, and features giant rooms with kitchens. The room would definitely be great for a family, especially one that wanted to cook a few meals in. Our hotel looked out onto a courtyard of old buildings that had a very Eastern European feel. We dropped our bags off, cooled down for a bit, and headed out for some more walking around.
Needing lunch, we decided it was a good time to finally go to La Boqueria. La Boqueria, one of the must see attractions in Barcelona, is a large covered market with about 125 different food stands. Fish of all kinds, meats of all kinds, produce of all kinds, snacks, candies, herbs, spices, etc, etc, etc. Really a sight to see. We wanted to try either Pinotxo or El Quim but couldn’t get a seat, let alone a menu at either place and didn’t feel like dealing. J got a plate of different vegetarian foods at a health stand along the back wall. I had been hoping against hope to find the food I had enjoyed so much in Berlin, the Döner kebab, and I had heard rumors that Barcelona had them, too. Well, I found one, and it wasn’t any good. I guess we’ll have to go back to Berlin sometime to get them.
It was too hot to do anything. We had hoped to do some shopping, but couldn’t get it going. We had checked out the Chocolate Museum earlier in the week but hadn’t gone in, deciding to save it for today. It wasn’t too expensive, but it was geared exclusively to children and we should have skipped it. There were some cool chocolate sculptures, but nothing mind altering. Depressed and now needing a chocolate fix, we had to go over to Valor for some more cold chocolate drinks, which were delicious, again.
Unable to do anything else because of the heat, we kind of collapsed in the shade on the stairs of a museum in a forgotten plaza and listened to a woman play Flamenco guitar while we zoned out. Soon, we moved our siesta into the courtyard of the Ministry of Culture. There was fountain there in which we watched a woman put her feet. I don’t know what the fountain was for, but I’m certain it’s not for touristic feet dipping.
We had wanted to check out Comerç 24 but couldn’t get a reservation later than 1:15 in the afternoon so we decided to check out Tapaç 24, the no-reservation, Tapas joint by the same chef, Carlos Abellán. If you had only one day in Barcelona, I’d suggest coming here for lunch and dinner, it was that good. We ate a menu of tapas suggested by the waiter, I’m not sure we would have ordered differently. We ate foie burgers (a specialty), grilled cheese with truffle oil, pan y tomate, patatas bravas, and probably a few other dishes that I’m forgetting in all their glory. Best of all was dessert, something I’m going to bring to America if I have to open a restaurant myself. 4 scoops of chocolate ganache drizzled in olive oil and flavored with a generous portion of sea salt. It doesn’t make sense until you try it, trust me. Go here often in Barcelona.
Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.
It was J’s birthday today, which I clearly forgot until the middle of the morning. All week, I had been trying to think of a way to celebrate a birthday while on vacation and then I just forgot. Then again, we’re on vacation, the whole time is a celebration!
We thought we’d do a little shopping in the morning before catching a commuter rail-like train to Sitges. Taking advantage of our close proximity to Barcelona Cathedral, we popped in quickly in the morning and confirmed that it’s not nearly as cool as Santa Maria del Mar. There is this crazy garden in the back of the Cathedral, though, with palm trees and geese. We then headed over to Calle Petritxol to check out Xocoa. On our way, we heard a giant commotion roiling though the alleys. We got to the mouth of Plaça de Sant Jaume, only to be blocked by a giant garbage truck trying to get by 2 riot police vans. (Almost no one drives in the close alleys of The Born and Barri Gothic except for the street sweepers and garbage men and women, who seem to be cleaning nonstop). It took the garbage truck about 5 minutes to get by, which seemed like forever because I REALLY wanted to see what was going on in the square. It was impossible to tell what the people were protesting, but eventually, a group of men were let into the building and everyone cheered.
Xocoa is a chocolate boutique that sells lots of great snacks and gifts and snacks to gift. We picked up a chili chocolate bar and a few truffles that were yummy. There are a few other chocolate stores on this street, making it worth a visit.
We checked out a few more stores and then mistakenly went to 4Gats. I say mistakenly because I had talked about this as a restaurant to avoid and J had only heard me talking about it, not what I said. She thought I wanted to go there and I thought she wanted to go there. There’s a reason people need to communicate and that reason is to avoid restaurants like 4Gats. The restaurant is historic and the building interesting, but if you’re going to go, I’ve heard the coffee and dessert route is the way to go. We got the fixed price lunch menu and a chance to sit up on the balcony looking down on the main dining room. The service was friendly, but the food was awful. I got a creamy pasta starter that was the best of everything we got. J’s fish came with veggies that looked and tasted like they had been boiled for 2 days. We felt snookered, afterward, to realize that the desserts we had ordered were not part of the fixed menu as we had believed. Go here, take a picture, and then go someplace else for lunch.
We went back to our hotel and picked up our bags to go to Sitges. The train ride was about 35 minutes, and while it had been drizzly and cloudy in Barcelona, it was sunny in Sitges. We got off the train not knowing how to get to our hotel. Finding the information booth closed, we walked around Sitges, stumbled upon the Mediterranean Sea, and then lucked into finding our hotel, Parrots. After booking the hotel, I read up on Sitges and found it described as, “The internationally renowned sun-drenched gay mecca of Europe” and, “Gayer than the capital of Gayland”. I saw “Is Sitges too gay?” and, “Too gay for families?” on a couple of message boards, and whatever that means, the answer is no. Yes, there are a plethora of gay men in Sitges. Unless you’re a secretly gay Republican that pretends not to be gay by being virulently homophobic, you will have a lovely time in Sitges. That said, Parrots is a gay hotel with a sauna that just opened and J was the only woman down at breakfast, garnering a few inquisitive, but friendly looks.
We asked Douglas at the front desk where to go for dinner, and he sent us to, what he called, “The third best restaurant in Sitges”, The Beach House. It was amazing and the portions were very generous. J got the watermelon salad and baked tortelini and I got the Cesar and Tuscan chicken. Everything was fabulous and, well, fabulous.
Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.
Not much is open in Barcelona on Sundays, so we decided to complete the Gaudi tour by going up to Park Guell. There’s a bus you can get in Plaza Catalunya that goes all the way to the entrance of the Parc. I’d suggest you take this because the Metro stop is almost a mile away and up a steep hill to boot. On the street leading into the Parc, there is a grocery with a crazy old man in it. I tried to buy a bottle of water from him, but as I was counting out the change, he snatched the bottle and put it back in the cooler. There wasn’t anyone in line and he wasn’t doing anything besides sitting behind the cash register. I’d like to blame this on my USA elitist sense of entitlement, but I literally hadn’t done anything. JR asked him “En serio?” “En SERIO” was his curt reply. I’m not sure what I did to piss him off, but hopefully he goes out of business soon.
Parc Guell is lovely and filled with Gaudi’s signature mosaics. There is a wide open terrace with a tiled bench all the way around, and a great view of the city. About a 10 minute hike further up brings you to the top of the parc and an even better view. We decided to take the metro back, but I wish we had taken the bus. Parc Guell is nice, but maybe skipable if you’re short on time?
We took the Metro to Sagrada Familia and decided to walk around for a bit before going in. We walked around the corner to Alkimia to see about lunch, but along with being woefully underdressed, there is only one seating for lunch and we had missed it by about 2 hours. Walking down the block, you’d never guess that one of the 3 best restaurants in Barcelona was behind one of the doors. We’ll have to check it out the next time we’re in town. We instead lunched at a chain bageteria, which was fine if not twice as expensive as every other bageteria in the city.
Sagrada Família is an amazing site, steeples rising high above the neighboring buildings, it’s visible from every somewhat elevated area of the city. We paid the 8 Euros entrance, admired the large carvings that adorn the outer walls, and went into what is essentially an empty shell of a cathedral with a hole in one entire side. The wait that everyone talks about is to ride an elevator to the top, which costs another 2 Euros. If you’re not going to wait the 30-60 minutes to get to the top, it’s probably not worth going in at all. Wait we did, though, and the view is amazing, both of the city, and the close ups of the different statues, designs, etc on the steeples and outer walls. It’s difficult to explain, so maybe you ought to see it. There’s a museum underneath the Cathedral which we skimmed, but it likely had something interesting. At least I hope so.
We took the Metro back to our hotel but stopped in La Colmena in Placa Angel for a delicious strawberry tort. I would have liked to have tried 7 other items, but that would have been imprudent.
We got back to the hotel and rested for a while before arguing about where to go for dinner. The dilemma was that very few restaurants in Barcelona are open on Sundays, and none that we were super excited to check out. We finally settled on Cuines de Santa Caterina which had the added benefit of being close to our hotel. The restaurant is in one of the much bigger buildings we were in in Spain and the menu was an eclectic mix of 4 different styles – Asian, Mediterranean, Italian and vegetarian. I had a fried rice that was tasty, though I couldn’t tell if the crispy rice texture was on purpose or not and J’s tofu curry was delicious. We had about 7 waiters who were constantly asking if everything was OK, but never returning with requested items (water, dessert, the bill…). A big open kitchen adds to the atmosphere.
Shocked and happy. There are more there are more Chinese restaurants in the United States than McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and Wendy’s. Paging Morgan Spurlock.
In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny — and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald’s.
This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as “pretty much near un-American.”
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Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would violate “federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and racketeering.” It has not explained how that extra penny would break those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are perfectly legal.
What’s ironic is that while Burger King refuses to take a stand in support of farm workers, it been relatively vocal on better treatment for chickens and pigs. Until they change their mind, Burger King is off my list, as are Florida tomatoes.
I wanted to post this Olly Moss Alice in Wonderland poster here, but since images don't seem to work in RSS anymore and Flickr makes it hard, maybe just click over and check it out.
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